Parallel computing is a form of computation in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously,[1] operating on the principle that large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which are then solved concurrently ("in parallel"). There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level, instruction level, data, and task parallelism. Parallelism has been employed for many years, mainly in high-performance computing, but interest in it has grown lately due to the physical constraints preventing frequency scaling.[2] As power consumption (and consequently heat generation) by computers has become a concern in recent years,[3] parallel computing has become the dominant paradigm in computer architecture, mainly in the form of multicore processors.[4]
Parallel computers can be roughly classified according to the level at which the hardware supports
Parallel computers can be roughly classified according to the level at which the hardware supports